katie rose writes

This summer, I have begun reading Les Miserables:  the complete, unabridged version.  Why? Because my heart is tightly wrapped around two words right now: freedom & rest. The latter, I have posted about a few times over the last year, but the former I'm still milling over. There's just so much to that one word we often throw around with gusto, while missing its impact upon our lives and the lives of others. One other word that stands as an umbrella over those two, as well as countless others, is grace. And that is what led me to Les Mis , because it is an epic story of grace triumphing over law.  In reading this--the first piece of true literature that I've read in a long time--I've relearned how much of a processor I am. Hence the highlighting to the right of the quote. There are many such marks scattered throughout the pages, but this one stopped me dead in my tracks. I won't give away any details (mostly because it took 20 pages to get here, but al...

Wandering comes when you've missed the rest. Rest comes when you step into the promise. But what about when you are between promises? When you are resting, knowing how far God has brought you and looking ahead to what he has for you, and yet you also are wandering? This is where I find myself, between promises. This is also where Joshua found himself.  Joshua was sent into the promise land along with other spies, the land of which God said, "I am giving to you..." That's present & progressive action. It was already begun before the people were even there. That's how promises work with God: we meet him among the promises he has already put into motion. We step into them. We don't wish nor will them to appear or work out. With God, the I AM, they already ARE. Yet, to the majority of the spies, the promise looked like a problem. Though the land was full of good things, provided in abundance by God, it was also full of strong people and big cities, and th...